WRC
Rally Finland: Red Bull final leg summary
KIMI RAIKKONEN EXPERIENCES THE UPS AND DOWNS OF RALLY FINLAND There are lots of hippies in Finland. But rather than people who hang around talking about flower power and making love not war, a 'hyppy' in Finnish means a big jump. Naturally, ...
Edited: Aug 1, 2010, 3:26 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
KIMI RAIKKONEN EXPERIENCES THE UPS AND DOWNS OF RALLY FINLAND
There are lots of hippies in Finland. But rather than people who hang around talking about flower power and making love not war, a 'hyppy' in Finnish means a big jump.
Naturally, there are more 'hyppys' on Rally Finland than there are at Woodstock. Just to reinforce this impression, there are quite a few old camper vans out there too. Hippies, of course, like nothing better than getting high. And so do rally drivers. Of course we're talking about those flat-out crests that characterise Rally Finland, sending the cars soaring for nearly a hundred metres into the air. As David Copperfield said, you'll believe a man can fly.
With so many big jumps, it is inevitable that Rally Finland contains several ups and downs. Kimi Raikkonen experienced both during the second and final day of his home event.
On the opening stage of the day, the 'Iceman' got caught out by a right-hand corner and slid into a ditch. The car was undamaged but it took some time to drive out of the ditch, as for once there wasn't a huge crowd of spectators around to help. While the crew were trying to regain the road, the front bumper of the C4 WRC became detached from the rest of it. To make matters worse, both front tyres then came off the rim. With only one spare wheel, the crew then struggled to get the other deflated tyre back on the rim and more than 10 minutes were lost in total.
Had it not been for that, then the 'Iceman' would have been comfortably in the points on his home event: an excellent achievement for somebody contesting the most specialised and complex rally on the calendar in a World Rally Car for the first time.
"We were a bit unlucky this morning but it's all part of the learning process," said Kimi, the winner of the 2007 Formula One title. "During the first day we tried not to take too many risks to be sure of making the finish, then we just got caught out on a slippery corner at the beginning of day two. With only two days in the rally this year there's not so much chance to make up the time lost, so from then on it was a question of getting to the finish. We were able to make a lot of progress with the pace notes, which was useful, and have more kilometres behind the wheel of the car, which is the most important thing. Of course I'm a bit disappointed as there was no real motivation today but in the end getting to the finish was the main aim. It's all about the experience."
Kimi's fellow Finn and co-driver Kaj Lindstrom added: "The really positive thing is we've continued the good work that we left off in Bulgaria. But this is a tough sport. You can have a good rally and survive all the complicated things, but then caught out by a place that is reasonably slow and straightforward, which is what happened to us today. We had been going very carefully during the first day and we thought that it might be possible to push a bit harder on day two. In the end we never really got the chance, as after we went off it was hard to find the same pace. We built up more experience though and above all we hope that everybody enjoyed watching us. There were certainly loads of people out there!"
-source: red bull
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Rally Finland: Peter Horsey final leg summary
Next article Rally Finland: Citroen final leg summary
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Kimi Raikkonen
David Coulthard explains why Robin Raikkonen's rise resembles Max Verstappen's
Formula 1
Formula 1
Spanish GP
David Coulthard explains why Robin Raikkonen's rise resembles Max Verstappen's
On this day: Michael Schumacher wins… and stuns tifosi with F1 retirement
Formula 1
Formula 1
Italian GP
On this day: Michael Schumacher wins… and stuns tifosi with F1 retirement
Red Bull signs Kimi Raikkonen’s son as junior driver
Formula 1
Formula 1
Italian GP
Red Bull signs Kimi Raikkonen’s son as junior driver
Latest news
WRC’s new champion Elfyn Evans celebrates title with Wales show run
WRC
WRC WRC 17 min
WRC’s new champion Elfyn Evans celebrates title with Wales show run
Who will win this year’s ultimate F1 dream ticket? You decide…
Sponsored
Sponsored 1 h
Who will win this year’s ultimate F1 dream ticket? You decide…
Ferrari promotes F2 racer to F1 reserve driver role
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
1 h
Ferrari promotes F2 racer to F1 reserve driver role
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe